English as the official language in international business because of some special reasons,about 300 years ago,Britain occupied many nations and constructed settlements around the world,and now,you may find out the Indian also speak English,and it's similarly in many other countries,English is the most widely used language in the world.But now,many foreigners come to china for studying Chinese,why?
because China is more and more important in international business and English is not "the only one"as it used to be,in Britain,person with ability of Chinese is in shortage(you may read some newspapers).
what meet the development of the world is needed.

Right! Keeper
Chinese is a large country with a crowded population. And I always think it's unecessary for Chinese to learn another language. I am greatly admire Chinese who have much contributions to the human history in terms of philosophy, ancient cultures, art, religion and much more.
English, as we've just discussed, simply plays a communicative role throughout the globe, namely English itself impossibly being a highly wonderful construction. I dare not advance my subjective thoughts about the uniqueness of each worldwide language whose shaping process has been expanding in different ways.
Pictographic languages such as China, Japan, Korea, Cambodia..play their distinct roles in human history, and definitely unlikely compared with other onomatopoeia languages which equally have special characteristics.
In general, a powerful country regarding national defence, economy,population, good welfare may consider language as a bridge for associations and cooperations among countries. Perhaps it is the way to acquire the most common language for bridging distances among the nations.

most of english learners study english just because english is a global language nowadays.you can communicate with people of different countries in english and you can make more money if you can speak english at least english makes your life easier sometimes.

Once one day when english speaking countries don't have overwhelming economical power, english will not so popular anymore....

After all, it is only small portion of english learners who are really interested in the cultures of english speaking countries.

I believe all people hope their native languages are the international ones..............

hi guys,
i'm an italian student...i'm doing a thesis about this situation:english as a global language.i'm doing a questionnary on line to analise this problem.
could you answer to it?this is the link:
http://www.englishclub.com/esl-forums/v ... hp?t=44600thank you very much.
bye bye

In my opinion, English is not the best language in this world. To me, a language is good if it has some criteria:

First, it is not hard to learn.
Based on my experiences as an English teacher, most of my students say that English is not easy. They say it is because English has too much complicated grammar such as tenses, irregular verbs, uncountable nouns, articles, prepositions, and much more. Non-native English speakers must memorize them hard to get familiar with the rules.

Second, it uses polite expressions.
Sorry my English speaking friends, to me, English is not a polite language. For instance, in some countries, it's not polite to call someone older with "you". We'll call his title, like "Can uncle help Bambang please?" instead of saying "Can you help me please?".

In addition to that, in some countries, people usually call their names when they are talking to the older one. We do it in our country. Look at this expression!
"Uncle, Bambang wants to visit uncle's house tomorrow". The speaker, Bambang, uses “Bambang” instead of “I”.

Another one is, we never call someone older with his name without calling his title first. Here is the example: " Will aunt Mary bring it to Bambang?". We don’t say “Can you bring it to me?". It sound impolite to us.

Another one that's very important to us is we never call our parents with their names. I have watched some English movies. In the movies, some children call their parents with their names like "Jack , I am very busy now". It's very impolite for us to call our father with his name. It is even considered rebellious!!!

Next, I would like to give comment on Emdb's post. He said :

emdb wrote:I am a native English speaker from the U.S. I'm glad it's my mother tounge because I realize that it would be a very difficult language to learn as a second language.

You are right my friend. It's not easy to learn your language. You are lucky that you were born as a native English speaker so that you don't have to study hard to catch this language. However, on the other side, you might forget something. Guess what!Since English is an international language, lots of English speakers do not learn other languages. There is a great number of them who only speak one language. Compared with us, the majority of us can speak at least two languages namely our local languages and our national language, and of course, plus English. Some can speak four local languages and four foreign languages. So I think, in one side you are happy, but in your subconscious side you might be unhappy.Correct me if I am wrong my friend !

emdb wrote:I'm curious to know which other languages would be as useful in bussiness as English.

My friend, it depends.
If you are dealing with a Chinese man in business, of course you need Chinese skills. Nowadays, many people all over the world are learning Chinese because they are doing business with some Chinese people. As you know my friend, Chinese products are penetrating a lot of markets all over the world by offering low priced-products. So my friend, in this case you need to learn Chinese as a business language.

I like the English language very much. It was so designed for others to learn and understand. I'm not good in this though but I've noticed it's more simple compared to other language. Because of its wide selection of words one can express himself in many different ways.

Do you think that English is the best choice for an international language? Why? Why not?

For nowdays yes. because English is an international language, it's spoken everywhere.
and I think it's not that difficult or hard to learn.
for example: Arabic language is more complex and difficult more than English language or any other language.

I think English is calles "international language" because like this french teacher wote: "...it was a luck of history..."... and this countries (UK and USA) began to expand their limits in all the senses. Then they arrived to our people by industry, products and some words (if you pay atention you could see that many of our words thathave been used from many time ago) are in english and we were born and learning it!!! this is all, luck or conspiration since tahe beginning of the history we need to be able to accept this and to remember that we never stayed in any specific country we always have stayed in the "world", it is not waiting for us!!!

Yup...i think because of english now is widely become a language that nowadays people using for business,and others..so,it become so popular that push everypeople to learn english in purpose to compete in their society..
Moreover,i think the country who dominate the economy...it'll make people tend to learning their language...For instance, recently China with the most fast economy growth rate,indirectly force every country to learning their language to compete and build relation between the countries...

Do you think that English is the best choice for an international language? Why? Why not?In my point of view I guessyes, globalization need one language to make commutation between over world people. So the English is best choice coz of British Empire spared all over country. In very earlier time they could communicate people from different language. In my point of view it will be satisfies to chose eng for communicateThank u

baobao wrote:Yup...i think because of english now is widely become a language that nowadays people using for business,and others..so,it become so popular that push everypeople to learn english in purpose to compete in their society..Moreover,i think the country who dominate the economy...it'll make people tend to learning their language...For instance, recently China with the most fast economy growth rate,indirectly force every country to learning their language to compete and build relation between the countries...

Hi!!!! I agree with you when you said that China become to be one of the most powerful country ( just industry). Came on, I want to see What do you think? Wich are the careers of future for people who are recently starting a university studies?... I mean, you Know, when one country like China became to growth we need to growth too!!!! what we can do?

hi too faby..I think because China with the highest population in the world about 1 billion more so their advantage is they have the lowest labor cost but recently i heard news although their cost is so low but their service and quality of goods yet low too...I think the most basic that every country do is to provide educate..so we can supply a quality labor not just a cheap labor...correct me i'm wrong

baobao wrote:hi too faby..I think because China with the highest population in the world about 1 billion more so their advantage is they have the lowest labor cost but recently i heard news although their cost is so low but their service and quality of goods yet low too...I think the most basic that every country do is to provide educate..so we can supply a quality labor not just a cheap labor...correct me i'm wrong

Hello! Baobao, I agree with you, but not for all. I think that quality of China's production is not low. I live in Kazakhstan and when the Sovet Union was broke after 2-3 years, percent of china's production in our market was 60-70! I remember those time. It was terrible, you can't imagine yourself a quality of production! But now situation is change. Quality have been increasing headily. Most of us wear china's clothes, work with china's computer and talk on china's mobile. It is not bad! It is cheap. I know that china's production is a very popular in Europe and another sides of the world.
What we can do? Only one, to learn Chinese as second or third language...

Hi babadoo and iamvitaly!!! I am agree with iamvitaly about her opinion of quuality of chinese products, here in Costa Rica e have a lot of options but Chinese products are really cheaper than English and un some cases this products are better than English products, I know, Chinese is most like a business language but in any case I think this is the language that will make the difference in professional's world.
And how do you feel that this language can affect in your country culture?

Hello, Faby! Yesterday I saw our president's interview. He said one interesting think, that everyone in our repuplic have to know three languages: Kazakh (our national and native language), Russian (most popular and spoken in our republick) and English. In ourdays Kazakhstan close connection with other european countres, like Germany, Great Britain and others, therefore English connects our republick with other world and have an influence on our republick's economics. I think, that I answer your question, Faby...

Hi iamvitaly!!! Yes, you answered my question!!! Thanks!!!.... Could you telm me more about your country? somethings like your culture and life style!!! I never had listened obout your country and It sound very interesting!!!!

I do think so too but there is one thing I disagree with you on. Chinese may be more complicated and difficult to use for many speakers of some languages but not for the Vietnamese, Koreans, Malaixians, Singaporians. These countries either have a long period of the past spoke the language as frequently as their mother tongue or have many citizens who speak chinese as their first language. As I know in my country, learning chinese is quite easy compared to english or other languages. I think the power of economics and politics is the most important.

Hello everyone,I do believe that English language became an International language because most of the people know this language,I know most of us had/have a television,this is a good example why. Did you notice that most of the channel got English language speakers? for it is easily understood by people, And television helps the people understand the language more often also radios. that's why i would say English language is right to be our International language, we are more competitive if we know this language.

lliekamia wrote:Hello everyone,I do believe that English language became an International language because most of the people know this language,I know most of us had/have a television,this is a good example why. Did you notice that most of the channel got English language speakers? for it is easily understood by people, And television helps the people understand the language more often also radios. that's why i would say English language is right to be our International language, we are more competitive if we know this language.

agree?

liekamia

Worldwide English is known as the language of business or the language of money. Once you can speak English you have an edge when it comes to dealing or interacting to different nationalities. Also if you started young it will be very easy studying English as your second language. For me English must be considered as the primary second language, its just like English is the neutral language everyone can understand. But there are some who considers English not as their second language, it can be Italian or mandarin but in all it can be very beneficial once you learn to be bilingual.

I agree that English language is the best choice to be the international communication. That is coz of several reasons but the most obvious on eis that, it is the language of the elit people in Britian and it was used as pristigous language. then, it is using in everywhere...thus it is the right means...